CHAPTER XI.
THE GUESTS OF THE ELDER BROTHER.
"And man may work with the great God; yea, ours
This privilege; all others, how beyond!
—Henry G. Sutton.
FEW days before school closed saw the Home filled for the summer.
The gathering in was achieved principally by Jim, Mrs. Hetterman, and Vincenzo Amati.
Vincenzo was an Italian of the better sort. He had lived in America long enough to acquire some of our ways of life. He earned a fairly good salary as cook, and he had kept his little family in comparative comfort in the best apartment which Rickett's Court had to offer, until the death of his pretty wife Giovanina. Since then the three little girls had done their best, but there was a woeful change. They became slatternly in appearance, and the two rooms grew dirty and cheerless. Worse than this, the girls affiliated with a lower class of their own nationality, the children of the rag-pickers in the basement, already referred to, who lived upon the chances of garbage barrels and beggary, and who spent much of their time in picking over and assorting the old bones, rags, paper, and other refuse dumped each night upon the floor of their sleeping and living room, as the result of their father's daily toil. These children were sickly and miserable, tainted morally as well as physically; and their parents, who were contented with their disgusting lives, were laying up money, in fact, for a return to Italy. But Vincenzo was not contented that his children should live in such fashion or have contaminating associates. He was one of the first applicants to place his children in the Home, paying cheerfully the highest sum asked for board, it having been early decided that the rates for each child should be proportioned to the wages of the parent.